I feel very inspired now that I am back in writing this story. I got the volume outline in pretty good shape. This chapter was pretty much written in a single day.
Chaos is the Prize Chapter 79
"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
The maritime travel had been more difficult ever since the fall of Beacon. Sun had had to wait weeks to find a ship that would sail from Mistral to Vacuo without stops on the way. Back in the day, he could have found plenty of ships to stowaway on and reach his destination at a very reasonable time investment. When a familiar face suddenly met his eye on the streets of Mistral, he suddenly hoped he would have just taken the first ship away from the Kingdome and damn the comfort and duration of the trip.
A guy who Sun thought had been called Orchid or something was blocking his way. The boy had been part of Vytal Festival, part of the tournament. Sun remembered watching his moves in preparation for the finale. Sun had no idea what had happened to the dude since the fall of Beacon, but here he was now. Sun could feel himself tense up with a foreboding sensation.
Sun did not know much about Orchid, but he remembered the team the boy had been part of. Sun pulled forth his weapon, just as another member of the said team emerged from behind him to block the other way of the street.
Sun turned sideways so that his flanks were to the two boys who had cornered him. He turned his head, switching between them watchfully. "Never ever would I have expected to see someone like you here. Sangur and Orchid, was it? Long time no see..." A bead of sweat rose to his brow. He wondered if he would have the moment to call his team if these two were out for trouble.
Orchid was the one to address Sun first. "There are things we want to know, abhuman. And little birds and spiders told us that you were around these neighborhoods and are able to enlighten certain matters for us. We need you to come with us, and no, we are not asking."
"Things you want to know, huh? And what might those be?" Sun asked while his mind was racing and analyzing the situation. He could have taken one of them on any day, two was too much. He had seen Sangur fight with General Ironwood, the big guy was no joke. Escape was the wisest option if he got a chance. If they gave him a chance.
"Team RWBY and JNPR. You will tell us about them and their plans," the big guy named Sangur barked.
Ah, so that was it. They were after Blake and the others. Most likely after their mission and the Relic thing. "No, I don't think I feel like telling you people anything. How about you back off and find someone else to bother? Or a nice noodle place, there are some very fine places around here, I could recommend you some."
Both Orchid and Sangur pulled forth their weapons.
"Is that a no?" Sun said with false joviality. Up to the roofs maybe...
"As I said, we are not asking," Orchid replied.
Well shit...
In the next moment, the two charged Sun.
Orchid reached Sun Wukong first. He slashed at the faunus with the shimmering blade of Malevolence, which was easily blocked by Sun's staff. A second later Sangur threw himself forth from the opposite side, forcing the monkey boy between them to twist and dodge not to get trapped between them.
Sun somersaulted to the side, right into the wall of the building next to them, and slammed his hands together. Two glowing doppelgangers manifested into the air and launched themselves at Orchi and Sangur respectively.
Orchid slid low along the ground to dodge the apparition, whereas Sangur merely bashed the thing aside, causing it to explode to his face in a flash of light.
In the moment of chance. Wukong used the wall behind him to bounce over them, and once more from the wall of the opposite building, before swinging himself from the edge rafters to the roof. Orchid wasted time and jumped on top of a nearby pile of crates to chase after the monkey.
Sun speeded along the rooftops, jumping from one to another. Orchid was not far on his, quite literal, tail. Sun performed some acrobatic moves among the various structures of Mistral, trying to lose Orchid to no avail, for Orchid's superhuman agility allowed him to keep up with the antics of the monkey boy.
Sun spun in the air, smashing his staff down to launch some loose bricks at Orchid, who easily dodged them. As the faunus landed, Orchid pointed the hilt guard of his sword at the boy. The weapon did not have more than one basic charge, but the weak sonic blast Orchid launched at the boy was enough to throw Sun off balance. It was all Orchid needed to catch up.
Orchid spun to launch a vicious kick that made contact with Sun's center mass, sending the faunus right through a window of a nearby building. Orchid jumped after him, dropping down from the high window into an enclosed room that looked like some sort of storage or workshop.
Sun was already on his feet when Orchid landed, spinning his staff to transform it into his gunchakus and opening fire at Orchid. Orchid used the flat of his blade to shield him from the first shot, and in the next moment, he was already in melee distance, deflecting the spinning red weapons with his blade.
The abhuman had talent, but he was not a superior duelist to Orchid. Which was somewhat challenged by the smack across the face Orchid suffered a second after, but he quickly pushed his offense to make up for the hit that could have surely not been anything more than luck. He had merely been playing with the monkey and gotten careless for a second. His pride drove him on as he strove to demonstrate his superior skill in the exchange of blows.
In the next moment, the flimsy door of the room was breached as Sangur crashed into the room, using the same move and momentum to break the door and smash into Sun. The Faunus was thrown against a wooden support beam by the force of the surprise assault into his flank. Nevertheless, the nimble monkey kneeled down and rolled away as Sangur's thirsting axes came after him from both sides and obliterated the wooden support structure.
The roof of the building shook. Sun looked around analyzing his surroundings and then fired his gun at a second support beam. He jumped and rolled away as the roof started collapsing.
Orchid caught the abhuman with his blade, striking one of the gunchakus from the palms of the tricky boy. A second later a falling support piece smashed onto Orchid, knocking him off his feet.
Sangur roared and tried to smash aside the pieces of the roof at stuff stored in the rafters falling on him. Several heavy pieces fell on him, but he pushed on towards the faunus boy. Just as the abhuman lunged for the door, Sangur managed to throw himself forward to the ground and use the hook shape of his axe blade to grab the boy's leg. He pulled, causing Sun to fall as more stuff rained upon all of them. Sangur let go of his axe in favor of grabbing the ankle of the boy, stopping his escape.
Sangur pushed up with all his might, using his broad shoulders to cast aside things on top of him. He pulled Sun from his ankle, raising the boy in the air before smashing him down with all his considerable strength. He held on and smashed Sun around like a rag doll before finally smashing him down at his feet and letting go. Sangur got on his knees, pressing Sun down and brought the other axe still in his hand down on the boy. He pressed the chain against the abhuman's back with both hands and gunned the trigger. The weapon roared to life and started to grind down against Sun's Aura, the devastating nature of the churning chain weapon causing tremendous Aura depletion in mere seconds, just like it was designed to do.
Sun spasmed, strugled and tried to break free by twisting his remaining weapon and aiming at Sangur, but Orchid came around and struck the other weapon as well from Sun's grasp, and delivered a forceful kick to the head for good measure.
After a few more seconds, the chain of Skalathrax bit true and broke the Aura in a faint shimmer of yellow. Sangur controlled himself and stopped pressing down on the weapon, causing the chain to shred only shallow streaks into the flesh of the abhuman's back, for they needed him alive for now.
Sun breathed out raggedly, laying at the mercy of the two Venatores.
"Now then," Orchid said, pulling out some rope from a nearby shelf. "You will be coming with us, and we will get back to that information that you will give us…"
Late at night, Sangur and Orchid returned to the shack Cerulean and claimed for their stay. They secured the monkey faunus to a chair, and soon after they started to extract information.
At first, the monkey refused to rat out his comrades and to answer the questions of Orchid and Ceruleon. The spilling of information started only after Orchid had to demonstrate his talent for pain once again.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAARGH….stop… stop… for the sake of all that is monkey and holy... Please… no… stop… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! You fucking animals! Chill out will you!?"
In the setting, Ceruleon adopted the role of a good cop to Orchid's bad, absolutely insane and merciless sadistic torturer cop. He carefully talked to the Faunus, explaining in very adjusted terms that they had nothing against teams RWBY and JNPR, wished no harm to them, and were only interested in the people after them. A touching tale about lost brethren of Beacon who needed justice also helped, Sangur contributed to that one. That considerably loosened the tongue of the monkey faunus, and soon Orchid's pain ministry could be totally forgotten, as Sun Wukong shared what he knew. The boy spared himself much suffering by breaking only after the first few demonstrations of Orchid's capabilities.
"Okay… okay.. I will talk… put those things away for Anima's sake… What.. what do you want to know?"
The info about the journey plans of RWBY and JNPR was not too much different from the information they had acquired from Little miss Malachite. Argus and the Kingdom of Atlas was confirmed as the destination of the teams. It was good they were able to confirm that, for now they had a solid direction where to head next.
The most important nugget of information was however quite unexpected. It came up when Cerulean inquired about the purposes and goals of RWBY and JNPR, and the people after them. That was when the topic of a Relic came up.
"A Relic?" Ceruleon asked. "What is that?"
Sangur had gotten tired after they had gotten the info about Cinder Fall trying to hunt down the teams of the Beacon students. He was ruggedly snoring in the corner of the room. Orchid had also lost some interest but was passively listening as he injected some foul concoctions into his veins by the lit fireplace of the room.
"Yes, that's what they called it," Sun replied. He took a gulp from a water canteen Cerulean offered him. "Relic with a capital R. But I don't know what it does or why it's important, but they said it was some sort of mystical object. Valuable yes, but more importantly very dangerous in the wrong hands. Like super important. The people who caused the fall of Beacon are after it. I think Blake may have mentioned that there were more than one. I saw the one they acquired from Haven. Looked like some big shiny holiday decoration."
"More than one?" Cruleon asked. "You said there was more than one?"
"Yeah, four apparently. One for each Huntsman academy of the Kingdoms I guess. Turns out these relics may have been the reason for the attacks on Beacon and Haven. I think the relic of Atlas that they are hoping to secure is some sort of magic staff. I really don't know more specifically than that. Blake explained it, but only briefly. Did not feel like they shared the whole story, but I did not ask either. I almost did not believe it myself."
"I see," Ceruleon said. "You sure there is nothing else you would like to tell us?"
"No, I don't think so. And please, believe me, no need to get rough again. I swear that is all I know about this whole grand happening with the Kingdom attacks."
Ceruleon looked into the eyes of the Sun. He did not detect deception. "I believe you. But do know that if I found out you lied later, Orchid will punish you."
"Eh, sure, we are on the same page here."
"Good."
"Soooo… can I go now? Now that you know what I know." Sun asked hopefully. For someone who had just tasted the care of Orchid, we were recovering very well. Maybe the bright behavior was some sort of coping mechanism, Ceruleon thought. Or he was just a bit high on the painkillers the Apothecary had offered, as heretical as Orchid found them.
"Sorry, we can't do that. You would just spill what happened here and what you told us. It could trouble our endeavors to locate Cinder Fall and her associates if you went out there and managed to contact RWBY and JNPR or something."
"Well crab," Sun said. "So you intend to just keep me captive then?"
"Until we can confirm what you have told us," Ceruleon replied. They would probably dispose of the Faunus when he was no longer useful, but Sun did not need to know that. Or who knew, maybe the Beacon students valued him enough as a hostage to some benefit. No needless waste of assets as was the Legion way. "Try to behave, for if you try anything, there are plenty of random innocent people we can harm to motivate you."
"Well this is just great. Can I at least make a local call to my teammates and tell them that I got freaking abducted for the valuable military secrets I hold? They're gonna get worried if their fearless leader does not return to them."
Cerulean sighed. He had no idea how someone could retain such a state of mind despite being kidnapped and tortured. He would have to keep this in mind when administrating pain killers in the future. Maybe it was partly a ploy or a facade to make he Venatores lose their guard. He would have to keep an eye on the monkey faunus. "... is a chat message enough?" he asked.
He dreamed of the night Beacon fell. He dreamed of the night it all went wrong. He dreamed of the night his brother died.
Ceruleon had seen the same dream many times now, enough for him to realize he was dreaming every time he saw it. It haunted him like a sickness of his tainted mind. Ever reminding of his failure.
In his nightmare, he saw the bridge of the Atlesian airship. He saw the boy, Mercury Black, corner Azuhrius. He saw Azuhrius trying to fight and escape, which failed. He saw Azuhrius bring forth the priceless blood vial in one last desperate attempt, but Mercury kicked it aside. He heard the words of Azuhrius.
"Wait… wait…"
Cerulean knew there was no redemption for his failure of that night, and the nightmares never allowed him to forget it. It was his fault. He saw his powerful brother die, and with that a great hope for his Legion die alongside him. He saw the blood vial lost, the irreplaceable Legion treasure stolen from the corpse of Azuhrius who had carried it on him. If there was anything left for Cerulean Lernaean, it was to seek his brother's killer, maybe avenge the fallen, and return the sacred blood into the hands of the Legion warriors yet to come.
As Cerulean watched the nightmare presented to his mind's eye like a horrible theatrical performance, he suddenly felt something change. The dream melted away, yet did not end, he did not wake up. It was as if something entered his mind through the dream he was having, invading his sleeping conscience. In the next moment, he could form a perception of a presence.
The immaterial thing passed its message like words into Ceruleon. It called to him. It wanted something to do with him. As the presence grew strong enough, Cerulean was able to recognize it as Daemonic.
"You… you have knowledge of the Staff and the Lamp…" Sythonax whispered into the mind of Cerulean. His mind attracted the attention of the Warp being as if simply acquiring the knowledge of this staff and lamp had been enough for his mind to trigger something and to send out a call into the depths of the warp through some unknowable means. "Come to me…" The Daemon Prince whispered, an invitation and a promise of something should Ceruleon and the others arrive to meet the Daemon. "Come to me…"
Ceruleon needed to wake up and tell the others. He needed to tell them that the Daemon wanted to talk.
"There are gods, but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually."
-Robert Anton Wilson
This was a quick chapter. Maybe I can make some more if my drive keeps up. I can already feel myself itching to start the next one. A lot of Neophytes in that one.
Leave a review if you feel like it and have a nice day.